The government should not be in the practice of legislating religious practices.

I.e., marriage.

What's disingenous is trying to have a debate about the positive aspects of polygamy without addressing the actual reality of how polygamy is practiced in this country.

That's a pure straw man argument. Nobody has said it shouldn't be addressed. A couple of us have merely stated that they shouldn't be conflated. Look that word up if you have to. Heck, you've explicitly agreed with the distinction. Which leads me to wonder what your point is, exactly?

You don't like the Utah communes. We get it. We don't like 'em, either. But I don't see how legalizing polygamy is going to make that situation worse; in fact, I suspect they wouldn't take advantage of such a circumstance, since it would merely make their less seemly activities public record (which would be a good thing for law enforcement - "oh, look, here's a marriage certificate for a 10-year-old niece..."), while also denying them the social-net benefits of supposedly single motherhood.

So, in the presence of abundant and repeated physical evidence, prior recorded testimony, multiple 911 calls, hospital visits, doctor concerns, and so on and so forth, you all think that abuser should get off the hook - by deserved constitutional RIGHT - if he can intimidate the victim too much for her to press charges and confront him face-to-face in court?

Because that's what I'm hearing from you guys, here.

I'm not talking about cases of reasonable doubt. That's why a criminal conviction is supposed to be beyond a reasonable doubt in the first place. People can lie face-to-face, too; I don't see how this could even relate to a false-accusation issue.

So, Debra Lafave, who coupled with a 14-year-old, is going free because the kid is suffering too much anxiety to testify. Nice timing. Ironically, the judge rejected the plea deal as "too lenient", and now there's going to be no sentence at all.

All cases that end up in court involve the question of reasonable doubt. If there was not the potential for doubt the case would have been plea-bargained earlier in the process.

Nonsense. Airtight cases can and do get contested and thrown out on grounds that have nothing to do with whether or not the defendant committed the crime - and that is the entirety of the issue at hand, as far as I'm concerned.

This right is not optional.

I'm not arguing about what the constitution says, but about how such cases should be treated, given that the constitution is not a fixed document and can be amended if necessary. If you're going to make an argument (and this goes for "blah blah woof woof" as well), please address that rather than the discussion of how the constitution as written is currently interpreted. Both of you have made grossly incorrect assumptions of my position on that.

It is not a technicality.

That's just silly.

It is basic to our system of Justice.

I don't see that.

And frankly, I find arguments against it to be as offensive as I find arguments that we establish an official religion.

Okay, that was a nice long letter, but you haven't said much in actual justification of this rule. The price of the rule is that it's letting vile criminals go free. The benefit is that the rule protects the innocent, and provides for the threat of punishment by perjury. That's all well and good as far as it goes, but I still don't see why a traumatized victim shouldn't be able to give a sworn deposition, or how that's going to fundamentally destroy the basics of our justice system.

Yes, that's what you're hearing from me.

Okay, why? I mean, besides "the constitution says so". As you're so quick to point out, the constitution can be amended.

All that evidence puts it well past 'reasonable doubt.'

That was the point. And, per your immediately previous statement, you are all for throwing out dreadful cases well past any reasonable doubt.

I am a bit amused to see this very destructive abuse of women get described as a lifestyle choice...

It wasn't. That's just your imagination. The abuse is by definition not a choice, after all. And there's plenty of abuse that doesn't involve polygamy.

Well, there's a lot to be said for people voting on things. It's a very democratic thing to do. And I'd love to see the pro-lifers have their noses rubbed in the fact that most Americans don't support such a total ban. But isn't the point of this law to go before the Supreme Court? Isn't the point of having Roe vs. Wade on the books to be that we don't have to fight these battles on a legislature-by-legislature, vote-by-vote basis? Isn't this sort of tactic basically conceding RvW is done - while it's still technically binding precedent?

I thought I'd read that the Supreme Court would be unlikely to reverse RvW all at once, right away like this, and therefore this case should be pushed at the courts in hopes of having further precedent in favor of medical rights. Supposedly the "sane" tactic for the other side would be to chip away at these rights instead of trying - and failing - to abrogate them all at once. They've overreached, and we should take full advantage of their mistake.

Massive changes in the economy invariably have victims; it's always better for the economy to evolve slowly. But, in agreement with mitch, does it really matter so much where the U.S. consumer is financing their burden of debt from? You can only run a large deficit for so long. Honestly, it might be better for U.S. consumer spending to be restrained by a lack of financing options than by simply imploding under its own weight of debt even with a favorable mortgage.